a href="#‘AMERICAN CENTURY’">‘A"ERICAN CENTURY’ = HISTORY’S WORST HOLOCAUST: MAKE THIS THE COMMUNIST CENTURY
a href="#SWEENEY’S ‘VICTORY’ SONG">SWEE"EY’S ‘VICTORY’ SONG IN SEATTLE A COVER FOR AFL-CIO’S DANCING TO BOSSES’ TUNE
SF LABOR CONFERENCE = CHANCE TO EXPOSE UNIONS’ PRO-WAR STAND
a href="#PLP ‘PROJECT’ BACKS UNAM">PL" ‘PROJECT’BACKS UNAM STRIKE POINTS WAY TO CLASS VICTORY
a href="#POULTRY WORKER’S MURDER">"OULTRY WORKER’S MURDER: ‘WE’RE NOT ASKING FOR A MOMENT OF SILENCE, BUT A LIFETIME OF STRUGGLE…
NATIONALIZATION—THE SOCIAL CON-TRICK
a href="#SALVADOR PL’ERS">"ALVADOR PL’ERS IN HIGH GEAR ON ROAD TO REVOLUTION
COMRADE HELEN SCHWARTZ: ‘SHE LIVES ON IN THE PARTY THAT SHE HELPED TO BUILD…’
NO CLASS ANALYSIS = PULITZER PRIZE
a href="#U.S., WITH WORLD’S LARGEST">".S., WITH WORLD’S LARGEST PRISON POPULATION, EXPANDING PRISON SLAVE LABOR
LETTER: STANDARDIZED TESTS TRACK YOUTH INTO UNEMPLOYMENT LINES
LIBERAL ON THE OUTSIDE, FASCIST ON THE INSIDE
HOSPITAL WORKERS LOSE AS BOSSES’PRIVATIZE FOR PROFIT
A FIRST-HAND ACCOUNT OF LIFE IN INDIA AND CHINA
BASIC CONTRADICTIONS IN MASS ORGANIZATIONS
TEMP AGENCIES AND SHELTERS ENSLAVE CHICAGO HOMELESS
THE 20TH CENTURY: HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW THAT LAST 1OO YEARS?
a name="‘AMERICAN CENTURY’"></"><s" st">'<">AM"RICAN CENTURY’ = HISTORY’S WORST HOLOCAUST: MAKE THIS THE COMMUNIST CENTURY
The New York Times used the millennium hoopla to distort history in "defining the American Century." The chief mouthpiece for the U.S. ruling class hailed a "society based on…political freedom, economic opportunity, individual worth and equal justice," that "guided the world away from totalitarian rule and economic ruin." Compare that crap with real history.
This century began with the U.S. intervention into the Colombian province of Panama, to set up a puppet regime to build the Panama Canal. The canal was built on the dead bodies of thousands of immigrant and native workers. They were worked to death and subjected to widespread disease, untreated by their murderous U.S. oppressors.
At home, racism against black people continued with thousands of lynchings. Jim Crow laws put black workers into chain gangs and a plantation/sharecropper economy that left generations in abject poverty. Millions of immigrants worked 12-hour days in the mines and mills, with barely enough to keep body and soul together. Thousands died in firetrap sweatshops like the Triangle Shirtwaist factory. U.S. troops and hired gunmen murdered miners and their families in the Rockefeller-engineered Ludlow Massacre.
In World War I, U.S. bosses, fearing that the spread of communism would endanger their profit system, tried to crush the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution by sending troops into the fledgling Soviet workers’ state until 1925, at the cost of 4.5 million workers’ lives. Communist-led Soviet workers and peasants, and the organization of the international working class, defeated that counter-revolution.
After the War, U.S. rulers launched the Palmer Raids. Thousands of immigrant workers were jailed as "suspected" communists and anarchists. This was capped by the frame-up and execution of two left-wing anarchists, Sacco and Vanzetti, who symbolized resistance to the rulers’ vicious anti-communist, anti-union drive.
Marines Plundered Central America
The "American Century" invaded virtually every country in Central America and the Caribbean.. Nicaragua faced U.S. Marines on 15 separate occasions. Marine commander General Smedley Butler proclaimed himself "a racketeer for capitalism," making Nicaragua "safe for the National City Bank."
The "Roaring ’20s" saw "prosperity" fueled by the Henry Ford-style sweatshop. Autoworkers could barely crawl up the stairs to their homes after 10 or 12 hours because of the speed of the Ford assembly lines.
Then the capitalist bubble burst into the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Seventeen million workers walked the streets, millions starving, homeless and forced into tarpaper shacks called Hoovervilles, named after Wall Street’s servant in the White House, Herbert Hoover. Roosevelt called out the army and National Guard against communist-led union drives in basic industries. Thousands of workers died from soldiers’ bullets and the effects of mass unemployment.
Meanwhile, the genocidal racist attacks on black workers continued unabated. Scores of imprisoned black workers were murdered when denied treatment for syphilis in the infamous "Tuskeegee experiment."
Soon World War II erupted. The U.S. and the Western alliance helped Hitler build his army, aided by U.S. bankers and industrialists like Ford and GM. They wanted him to move East and destroy the Soviet Union. But the heroism of the Soviet working class and its Red Army—led by its Communist Party—foiled this strategy, holding 80% of the Nazi troops at bay on the Eastern Front. The U.S. and Britain deliberately postponed the invasion of France for two years, hoping Hitler would bleed the Soviets. Leading Western generals admitted, "If Hitler had conquered Russia, untold number of us in England and the U.S. would not be alive today."
U.S. A-Bombs Slaughter 250,000
While President Roosevelt turned his back on saving million of Jewish victims of the Nazi holocaust (the "Times" defined it as a "lapse"), he put tens of thousands of Japanese-Americans in U.S. concentration camps for the duration of the war. A culmination of these atrocities came in August 1945. With the Japanese about to surrender, Democratic President Truman dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The two blasts slaughtered a quarter million Japanese civilians instantly. Millions more suffered genetic defects and cancers, right to this day. The real reason for dropping the bombs was to threaten the Soviets that they could be next if they didn’t knuckle under to U.S. imperialism in the post-war world.
U.S. rulers re-Nazified Germany while, along with the Vatican, helped thousands of other Nazis to escape to South America. They brought over 400 Nazi rocket scientists to lead the U.S. rocket/missile program. These Nazi "scientists" had literally worked and starved to death tens of thousands of slave laborers in concentration camp experiments developing the V-2 rocket. Not to be out done, the U.S. government conducted experiments on hundreds of thousands of military personnel, human guinea pigs, often without their knowledge or consent. (See History Channel, Jan. 8, 8:00, EST.)
Soon U.S. imperialism was running rampant throughout the world, supporting every anti-communist, fascist regime it could lay its hands on. In 1950 the US provoked the Korean War, invading Korea and killing a million Koreans. In 1953 it overthrew a nationalist government and installed the fascist Shah of Iran, to protect its Middle East oil interests. The U.S. government’s CIA trained the Shah’s Savak secret police, torturing and murdering tens of thousands. In 1954 the US overthrew the left-wing government in Guatemala, installing a puppet regime that murdered 200,000 workers—mostly indigenous peoples—the next four decades.
Atrocity in Vietnam: 3,000,000 Killed
Then came the invasion of Vietnam by a million U.S. troops to prevent the defeat of the fascist South Vietnamese regime. Throughout the Republican and Democratic presidencies of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, U.S. rulers rained more bombs on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia than had been used in all of World War II! They killed 3,000,000 Vietnamese before being driven out by a communist-led movement that would not quit.
Meanwhile, anti-racist rebellions exploded in U.S. cities. National Guard and army troops were needed to put down black and Latin workers and youth, many of them Vietnam vets, who rebelled against racist police brutality and mass unemployment.
In 1961 the CIA assassinated Lumumba in the Congo and installed a puppet dictator there, which set up the slaughter of the past 40 years. In 1965, Johnson invaded the Dominican Republic with 32,000 troops to save a pro-U.S. military dictatorship. Then in 1973 the U.S. brought the fascist Pinochet to power in Chile, killing tens of thousands. Bush invaded Panama, sending thousands of civilians into mass graves, to freeze out competing imperialists. At Fort Benning, Georgia, the School of the Americas has trained fascist death squads from all over Central and South America. (In the early 1960’s the Second Declaration of Havana accused US imperialism of killing two million people a year in Latin America.)
The CIA brought planeloads of drugs into the U.S. from Central America, in aircraft used to deliver weapons to fascist troops in El Salvador and Nicaragua. Then Reagan’s "War on Drugs" made possession of one gram (1/33 of an ounce) of crack cocaine subject to a 5-year prison term; one-third of an ounce brought ten years, without parole. This swelled the U.S. prison population to two million, the highest in the world. Two-thirds are black and Latin. Including those on probation and parole, 5.5 million are in the criminal "justice" system, with hundreds of thousands forced into prison slave labor.
U.S. bosses under Bush and Clinton killed 500,000 Iraqis during and after the Gulf War. Many more are still dying from the effects of that war. Somalia and Yugoslavia were bombed and invaded to guarantee oil supplies and oil pipelines.
Nike, GAP Spread Sweatshops Worldwide
U.S. corporations exploit tens of millions around the world. The garment sweatshops of New York and Los Angeles have been spread to the Nike and GAP sweatshops in Indonesia, China and Southeast Asia. Millions die each year due to exploitation which causes poverty, disease, mass unemployment, inadequate medical care, death squads, cancer-causing pollution—all for U.S. corporate profits. This is the REAL "American Century," the one the "Times" deliberately "forgets."
But also in this century communist revolution emerged as the qualitatively new force in world history. The Soviet and Chinese revolutions, the Red Armies’ defeats of Hitler, the Japanese fascists and Chiang Kai-shek and the communist-led anti-fascist Resistance movements of Europe and Asia built an international communist movement that Challenged the 400-year-old capitalist world order. Although temporarily set back mainly by its own internal weaknesses, and also by attacks from world imperialism, communism is still, in Marx’s words, "the specter haunting world capitalism."
The one constant throughout this century-long profit-making orgy of capitalism has been the unceasing fight-back by the world’s exploited working classes. In the U.S. there has been continuous working-class struggle, including rebellions led by black workers, as well as mass anti-imperialist war movements. On a world scale there has been the heroism of the Soviet and Chinese Red Armies, rebellions throughout Latin-America and Asia and the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa
The second half of the century saw the emergence of the Progressive Labor Party, initially in the U.S. and now in many countries in Latin-America and many friends organizing in Europe and Asia. We stand on the shoulders of the past giants of Marxism-Leninism, and are building a new international communist movement.
U.S. bosses rant about "the next American century." It is up to our class, led by the PLP, to smash their plans for a "1,000-year reign," just as the Red Army did to their Nazi predecessors in World War II. It is up to us to make the 21st century the century of the working class, the Red Century of communist revolution, especially here in the U.S., the belly of the monster. "Workers of the world, Unite!" is our clarion call. "We have nothing to lose but our capitalist chains! We have a world to win!"
a name="SWEENEY’S ‘VICTORY’ SONG"></a>"WEENEY’S ‘VICTORY’ SONG IN SEATTLE A COVER FOR AFL-CIO’S DANCING TO BOSSES’ TUNE
The latest Aero Mechanic, newspaper of Boeing’s largest union, distributed to 30,000-40,000 employed and retired Boeing workers, devoted most of its pages to celebrating the anti-WTO (World Trade Organization) demonstrations in Seattle. The Aero Mechanic declared the protest events "a marked victory, indeed!"
"The week produced a stunning breakthrough in the public debate over globalization and heightened public awareness of our issues," bragged this mouthpiece of the union hacks. "In taking to the streets, we gained a very important political ally…President Clinton."
It will do us no good to sugarcoat this point; there was no victory for the working class at the Battle in Seattle. The demonstrators did not cause the collapse of the talks in Seattle; the increasing tension between imperialist blocs did.
In fact, the world is a more dangerous place after these talks. This period carries undeniable similarities to the build-ups to World Wars I and II. "It is a phenomenon that the world has seen several times before. It is, over the course of a generation, a very scary phenomenon. Tensions among, and within blocs grow, beginning as economic tensions, and then turning into political tensions." (Stratfor, Inc., 11/29/99) Bromides about the "Victory in Seattle" will not help us destroy this murderous system, which was pushed further along the path to war and fascism by the events at the WTO meeting.
What then does AFL-CIO John Sweeney have in mind when he hailed the "victory" in Seattle? He is talking about democracy and defending human and labor rights abroad as a cover for building a movement to support U.S. imperialism worldwide. While he barely discusses labor abuses here in the U.S., he focuses his fire on other countries to paint U.S. capitalism as the savior of the world. The AFL-CIO has marched to the beat of U.S. imperialism for almost 50 years. This latest incarnation is nothing more than the same old wreck of a car with a new coat of paint.
Building this reactionary movement under a "progressive" cover is a tricky business. This is not the 1930’s when Hitler had millions of German workers goose-stepping to the Nazi beat. At this point the AFL-CIO misleaders do not have the thousands of committed cadre needed to organize the type of political movement that compares to Hitler’s. As our experiences showed during the Battle in Seattle, many workers were open to our communist analysis of events—if we don’t hold back!
The AFL-CIO, along with allies like Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, hopes to turn the Battle in Seattle into a campaign to attack the Chinese. They falsely label the Chinese capitalists "communists" to be able to spread anti-communism. Our warnings that this campaign is an attempt to win workers to support the imperialist aims of U.S. bosses against their imperialist competitors has met sympathetic ears among the rank and file in the unions and other groups. We can make qualitative gains if we fight like hell within these groups. Then, we can talk about some real victories!
SF LABOR CONFERENCE = CHANCE TO EXPOSE UNIONS’ PRO-WAR STAND
SAN FRANCISCO, CA., Jan. 3—This city’s AFL-CIO Central Labor Council is organizing an "Open World Conference on Trade Union Independence and Democratic Rights." It will be held here from February 11-14, and is endorsed by the Labor Party and supported by Global Exchange. Already some 200 delegates from other countries, including mainland China, are committed to join 100-200 from the U.S.
This Conference is billed as a follow-up to the "victory" in Seattle. The ILWU, (West Coast Longshoremen) and the Teamsters have endorsed it. (The ILWU organized strikes against the WTO on the day of the AFL-CIO demonstration in Seattle.) The conference supports the protectionist demands of the Steelworkers’ union against "dumping" foreign steel.
PLP encourages workers to attend this Conference to put forward a fighting program against fascist conditions and imperialist war. We’ll fight against plans to turn the conference into a celebration of the AFL-CIO’s hypocritical campaign for "human rights" and the building of "independent" (pro-US imperialist) unions. The AFL-CIO leadership has a long, dirty history of supporting U.S. imperialist wars (helping the CIA to foment them), including the bombing of Iraq and Yugoslavia. The conference leaders are planning sessions to attack China’s admission into the WTO, to use China-bashing to get workers to support U.S. imperialism.
Revolutionaries in PLP must raise our communist politics at this Conference to win delegates fighting prison labor in China to link that to the even larger issue of fighting prison labor and Workfare right here in the U.S. Our experiences in the recent past, both in Seattle and in many mass organizations, demonstrate that hundreds, even thousands, of workers and others are very receptive to the Party’s ideas. Many are wide open to them.
"We are in a death struggle against NAFTA and against the ‘corporate free trade’ agenda," says Jack Henning, Secretary-Treasurer Emeritus of the California branch of the AFL-CIO, and a convener of the Conference.
Sure, workers are in a life-and-death struggle all right. But NAFTA is just one of the symptoms, not the cause. The source of the attacks on unions and workers’ conditions worldwide is capitalism. The crisis of capitalism is leading to sharpening rivalry among the imperialists, and towards war. The AFL-CIO leaders have tried to cover up the fascist increase in prison labor in the U.S. and the spread of slave labor Workfare in their attempt to win U.S. workers to support a fascist pro-U.S. imperialist war movement.
Boeing is about to lay off thousands of workers while it turns to sub-contractors and prison labor to produce airplanes. More than 150,000 garment workers in Los Angeles face sweatshop conditions without a peep from the AFL-CIO. In transit systems across the U.S., Workfare and/or prison labor are being used to clean subways and buses. PLP urges angry workers to attend this Conference to raise the need to fight these fascist conditions and to expose the phony "internationalism" of the AFL-CIO as a cover for the U.S. bosses’ plans for fascism and war. Workers should follow up the fight at this Conference by joining PLP and marching on May Day, to fight for true internationalism and communist revolution.
End production for profit and produce for the needs of the international working class!
a name="PLP ‘PROJECT’ BACKS UNAM"></">PL" ‘PROJECT’ BACKS UNAM STRIKE POINTS WAY TO CLASS VICTORY
MEXICO CITY ¾ During the Thanksgiving weekend Progressive Labor Party members participated in a mini-project here to support the strike at the National University of Mexico (UNAM). During the extended weekend we distributed a communist flyer in a university that has shown some solidarity with the UNAM strikers. The flyer’s main point was that only communist revolution could alter the educational system in favor of the working class; that the class nature of the current UNAM bureaucracy was a reflection of the needs of the worldwide capitalist system. The flyer was warmly received by thousands of students on their lunch break.
Several high school strikers participated in building support for their strike. We had a Political Economy study group with them there. We began the next day with another study group. It was pointed out that the ideas in the Party’s pamphlet should be used as a guide to lead our struggle and to be better able to analyze the forces involved in the UNAM strike. The students said the university’s main role was to indoctrinate the working class and prepare it ideologically to serve the bosses. They were also aware that the bosses’ economic crisis is fomenting the attacks they’re suffering. They said their strongest support has come from the most oppressed masses of workers. The latter’s sons and daughters can hardly attend the university now and will be even more restricted if the tuition increase takes effect.
The UNAM struggle is teaching our Party many profound lessons: (1) We must be involved in the mass movement and struggle with our friends there to join the Party; (2) it is possible to participate in these sharp struggles and at the same time build the Party and spread revolutionary communist ideas; (3) to respect the profound nature of the masses’ knowledge once they are in struggle; and, (4) rely on the masses to help us lead this struggle and figure out the best way to participate in it.
The crisis changes the nature of political struggle. Examples include UNAM, the World Trade Organization and the Decatur, IL. 7 (suspended black students). It directly Challenges us to lead in a more mass way, to immerse ourselves in these struggles and learn to lead. One very dangerous pitfall is the reformist misleadership. We must present communism as the only alternative. We need a deep understanding of our friends’ reformist ideas so we can win them to revolutionary communism and the Progressive Labor Party.
As one worker said at a meeting with students, this strike is a golden opportunity to extend our Party and expand its influence. He is absolutely right! At a march of thousands of students demanding the start of talks with the new rector of the university we were able to distribute hundreds of leaflets pointing out the need for revolution. This is a small step toward the eventual victory of our class. We have become leaders in this movement and earned the respect of many militant fighters. This bodes well for our Party and our continuing efforts amongst students.
a name="POULTRY WORKER’S MURDER">">"OULTRY WORKER’S MURDER: ‘WE’RE NOT ASKING FOR A MOMENT OF SILENCE, BUT A LIFETIME OF STRUGGLE…
LOS ANGELES, CA, Dec. 13 — "Don’t stop the line. Keep working!" shouted one of the supervisors when several workers ran to see what happened with a fellow worker who had fallen off a flight of stairs, dying instantly. The workers were very angry and sad about the death of Armando. The Woodland Farms bosses tried to blame the worker, saying, "he didn’t even try to get up." The next day workers wore buttons with a big red fist that proclaimed, "We come to work—not to die!" They all wore black in memory of their fellow worker who died and collected money for funeral costs to take with their condolences to the family.
The anger and unity of the workers frightened the company and its supervisors. The bosses began a campaign to intimidate the witnesses who saw the "accident." They have hidden the stairs from which the worker fell and have tried to erase all memory of the dead worker. But what they can’t hide are the inhuman conditions under which these workers are forced to work. The pressure and speed of the line, racist insults, starvation wages and unhealthy and dangerous conditions make the processing plant an intolerably hard place to work.
This death is one more added to the long list caused by the bosses’ system which, in their drive for profits, kills workers in their factories, in their wars, at their borders and in the neighborhoods where racist cops terrorize the youth. The murder of this worker shows us once again the hypocrisy of Clinton’s government, along with his lackeys in the leadership of the AFL-CIO, who say the U.S. respects "human rights." What rights? The right to exploit and kill? The workers in this factory are constantly getting sick due to the terrible working conditions and lack of proper safety equipment. But OSHA (US Govt. Occupation Safety and Health Agency), in charge of supervising safety conditions, has given its approval to Woodland Farms!
Armando was a CHALLENGE reader. Every week he read his paper and came in the next day with questions and examples showing he identified with the whole working class. The bosses and their rotten, racist profit system killed one more working-class fighter. But his death will not be in vain. Many more workers have been politicized with CHALLENGE’S communist ideas. Many more see the need to organize and fight against all the bosses.
We will keep fighting for a communist society where the most important thing will be workers’ lives, where there will be no wealth made from workers’ blood; where workers won’t be forced to risk death to cross borders to survive, because we will abolish all capitalist borders. We will build a communist society where workers share whatever we produce, in scarcity and abundance.
Let the death of our friend Armando inspire us to fight for a society without bosses. We’re not asking for a moment of silence, but for a lifetime of struggle.
NATIONALIZATION—THE SOCIAL CON-TRICK
Dear CHALLENGE:
I see from some recent articles there are a lot of people who still think social democrats are kindlier, gentler capitalists and that, in particular, workers are better off working for nationalized companies. From my own experience, I can tell you all this is very wrong.
I lived for a while in the UK (England). I arrived in 1974, soon after the first big miners’ strike which smashed the Conservative government’s wage-freeze. For a short while there were big pay raises for almost all unionized workers. The bosses were set back somewhat and there was very little unemployment. But the situation didn't last. The social democratic Labour party took over the government later that year. Many workers thought this was yet another victory. However, the social democrats immediately began to undo everything won in the miner's strike—and a lot more.
It took a while but Labour had the advantage of being able to talk about "our" government, "our" problems with the economy, and the need for "us" to make sacrifices. Otherwise, they said, the meaner, leaner Conservatives would return, and destroy (through privatization) everything Labour had worked for. (The post-war Labour government had nationalized all the main industries in the late 1940’s.) The Labour politicians and the big union leaders (basically the same people) proposed the "Social Contract," which meant pay freezes and an end to strikes. On the whole, union members went along with it. The firefighters, for example, didn't, and Labour crushed their long strike by bringing in the army. Once the Social Contract was established, Labour moved on to the second phase, downsizing (of course they didn't use that word) the main industries (all government-owned). Workers were told this was in the national interest and that it was the only way to save these industries from going bust or (gasp) being privatized. Those who voluntarily abandoned their jobs were given a few thousand pounds of "redundancy payments" and sent to useless retraining schemes. As a result hundreds of thousands of industrial workers (in British Coal, British Steel, British Leyland, etc.) became unemployed, many never to work again. Whole areas, especially in the North, were economically devastated (and still are today).
And all this didn't even prevent privatization. Eventually, Labour was ousted. The clique of capitalists who had made it big through nationalization was replaced by the more traditional clique (centered around Barclays bank). This clique appropriated what was left of their rival’s property (through nationalization) and were able to defeat (in the second miners’ strike) the resistance of a much-weakened union movement.
Reader in Canada
a name="SALVADOR PL’ERS">">"ALVADOR PL’ERS IN HIGH GEAR ON ROAD TO REVOLUTION
MORAZAN, EL SALVADOR—"You have to be more careful when you talk about the Party’s ideas with the youth. We could turn them off. That happened to us when we started to organize people for the Front [FMLN guerrillas] in the 1970’s," said Robert. A young friend answered, "Don’t worry about us. We’re clear about the Party’s ideas. There’s no way that talking about them will scare us. On the contrary, you motivate us to keep learning." Another youth added, "We’ve already been reading CHALLENGE and we like the way the Party focuses its points, for example, predicting another inter-imperialist war."
This day in mid-December we gathered in the immense mountains of Morazan. It was very gratifying. The weather was very cold, but the warmth of our camaraderie gave a festive atmosphere to this communist get together. We ate a delicious bar-b-que meal, while comrades told stories about what had happened in these same mountains during the war.
There was time to be critical and self-critical about the scarce ideological training occurring during that conflict. We vowed that this will not happen in the future as we fight for communism. PLP members cannot fall into the FMLN trap of fighting to reform capitalism. Instead we will fight for every member of the Party and the working class to know the basic communist ideas of Marx, Lenin and Stalin.
Our agenda began with the world situation, then the political situation in El Salvador, and the development of CHALLENGE. We read and analyzed the CHALLENGE editorial. We had a profound discussion about the inter-imperialist rivalries, and the ways that the capitalists fight for profits. We understood this means there will be a third world war, and we communists have to prepare the working class, starting now, to fight to take power, for the dictatorship of the working class.
We reviewed the coming elections in El Salvador. We discussed the recent television interview with Mayor Hector Silva of San Salvador in which he emphasized belief in a free market economy to solve workers’ problems. If the FMLN leadership believes blindly in this capitalist idea, it can never offer the working class a real alternative, communism, to change the economic system.
Four comrades joined the party at this gathering, filling us with pride. Other comrades whose responsibilities with electoral parties conflicted with our meeting put those tasks in second place. "The elections won’t resolve the workers’ problems," these comrades said. "The primary thing is to study the communist ideas of the Party. That’s why we’re here. In the FMLN, they only think about elections, not about ideology, which is fundamental."
PLP is advancing. Our communist literature, including CHALLENGE, is reaching places that previously appeared unreachable. But today we are taking steps to be able to win many more workers to the fight for communism during the new millennium.
COMRADE HELEN SCHWARTZ: ‘SHE LIVES ON IN THE PARTY THAT SHE HELPED TO BUILD…’
Helen and I met each other at a Marxist training school some 51 years ago. Our immediate affection for each other was reinforced by several dates through which we began to get to know each other better. Shortly thereafter we decided to marry.
We were both communists when we met and have remained so ever since, committed to creating a world in which profits play no role, in which the motive force for society is producing what people need, and in which the factories and fields belong to those who labor in and on them. A world free of racism and of all oppression of one human being by any other.
Helen was stricken with breast cancer in 1976 and carried on an almost unbelievably valiant struggle against it for 23 years. Even though she lost her final struggle against this disease, she won for herself and her family 23 good years during which four of her grandchildren were born so that she was able to enjoy them and they her. Unfortunately, she did not live to see the birth of her newest grandchild, due in July. During these years she also continued to lead our Party’s work in Connecticut in spite of her infirmities. She set an example of commitment from which we should all learn. She touched and changed many people’s lives. Her dedication to the struggle for communism and against racism is an inspiration to me and many others. She will be sorely missed by both her family and many friends.
We were married for over 50 years. During those years she was always my best friend and sharpest critic at the same time. I have loved her throughout and learnt much from her kind, caring and courageous example of how to live. I miss her terribly. Her loss leaves a great hole in my life. But in spite of this I intend to carry on the struggle as she would have wished me to.
NO CLASS ANALYSIS = PULITZER PRIZE
Book review: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, by Jared Diamond.
Diamond’s book covers tens of thousands of years of human history. It is an anti-racist answer to questions like why Europeans sailed across the oceans and conquered Native American and African societies, rather than the other way around. Using evidence from many branches of science—including archeology, geology, linguistics, and genetics—he proves that it was not due to supposed differences in innate abilities or biology, which he shows did not (and still do not) exist.
Diamond’s history begins with the origins of humanity in Africa and traces the migration to the rest of the world over tens of thousands of years. Around 40,000 B.C. people built boats and populated the South Pacific islands. Meanwhile, other people spread out over the Eurasian continent. Around 11,000 B.C., people migrated to North America and reached South America thousands of years later.
Diamond describes the various social organizations—bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states, increasingly larger and more tightly-governed forms. Bands were small mobile groups of related individuals, who hunted and gathered plants for food. Tribes were large enough so that not everyone knew everyone else. These larger groups became possible only through plant and animal domestication—agriculture and herding. As population size and density grew, tribes became chiefdoms and chiefdoms became states.
Agriculture requires the availability of plants that provide sufficient nourishment. Such plants only existed in a few places. The only peoples who did not develop agriculture were those without available domesticable plants. The same was true of animal domestication and breeding. These allowed societies to become sedentary (non-nomadic) and, in turn, larger and denser. Infectious diseases then spread from animals to people. Those who didn’t die from these diseases developed immunities. These germs later accounted for at least as many deaths of conquered peoples as guns and other metal weapons.
Technological inventions took place in many societies at many times, but only took hold in societies that could use them. While Europe was slower than Asia to develop states and technology, its eventual advance in this millenium was in part due to the predominantly east-west orientation of the Eurasian land mass. This allowed agriculture and technology to spread from the Fertile Crescent (today’s Middle East) to other peoples in Europe, Asia and North Africa, without its having to cross different temperature zones.
In contrast, Africa and the Americas are predominantly north-south oriented and cross equatorial deserts, which acted as barriers to the spread of agriculture and animal breeding until domesticable plants and animals were brought in by ship. Thus the differences were not due to innate qualities of the people, but to external circumstances of geography and domesticable plant and animal availability.
Diamond places the origins of organized religion in chiefdoms and states, in which the rulers required priests to justify their right to rule and enslave the masses. The priests pacified the masses. While Diamond doesn’t say so, this continues to the present time.
Filled with scientific falsehoods
The major areas of falsehood in Diamond’s otherwise useful summary of human history include, first, his failure to even mention social classes and how they arose once populations were large enough, and food production efficient enough, to free an increasing portion of the population from agricultural labor. Second, he fails to even ask what it was about the social order that determined when technological advances were needed.
Third, while Diamond asks why Europeans, but not Chinese, sailed abroad to conquer peoples all over the world, he explains the difference in terms of the unity of the vast Chinese land mass under one ruler, in contrast to Europe which had many competing societies, each with its own ruler. But he never asks what gave rise to the competition. Furthermore he never mentions that the conquerors were not Europeans as such, but rather European rulers, who enslaved the laboring classes of Europe no less than those of other geographical areas, though sometimes with alternative forms of slavery—wage slavery and serfdom, rather than chattel slavery. Nor does he mention that the conquered societies in the Western Hemisphere and in Africa were themselves class-divided. The rulers in these areas were either more easily conquered because of these divisions (e.g., Aztecs and Incas) or were willing to cooperate by selling their own working classes as slaves (as in Africa).
Competition is inherent in a profit-based, class-divided form of society, capitalism, which requires that profits be maximized to stay in business ahead of other profit-makers. This in turn gives rise to the outward expansion of capitalist ruling classes, and continues today in the form of inter-imperialist rivalry among all the capitalist rulers in the world. However, Diamond completely avoids discussing modern-day imperialism.
Worst of all is Diamond’s assumption that people naturally try to kill strangers unless prevented by external forces. He says that in large societies where most people don’t know each other, the state and religion were the only things that stood in the way of mayhem. This assumption about human beings smacks of the fascist explanations for modern war provided by sociobiologists and other biological determinists. And he ignores the fact that in the modern world, it is the state itself, as the main prop of profit-based capitalism and imperialism, which commits mayhem against working class people all over the world.
Diamond’s complete failure to criticize capitalism and imperialism is one reason why the book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize by the capitalists. But the book is also very useful to the working class in filling some of the gaps in pre-capitalist history.
"BUY AND SELL"
(to the tune of "Silver Bells")
Buy and sell, buy and sell,
Avarice thrives in the city.
Jobless? Well, what the hell!
Isn't free enterprise grand!
Inside trading, corporate raiding:
That's the way they get rich.
In the air, there's the stink of big business.
There's strip mining, bank red-lining,
And the old bait-and-switch,
And in every posh board-room you hear...
Arbitrage, slick tax dodge,
Avarice thrives in the city.
Poverty? C'est la vie!
Isn't free enterprise grand!
Toxic land fill, massive oil spill
Make the profits increase.
In the air, there's the reek of pollution.
When there's sludges, buy the judges,
Legislators, and police.
And in every plush penthouse you hear...
Real estate, speculate,
Avarice thrives in the city.
Rising rents? Move to tents!
Isn't free enterprise grand!
Leveraged buy out, workers cry out
As their unions get smashed.
In the air, there's the stench of reaction.
Oh the slum folk are just plumb broke,
And their hopes are all dashed,
But there's now growing voices we hear...
Organize, rainbow ties!
We all still need social justice!
They globalize, we mobilize!
There is a world to be won!
a name="U.S., WITH WORLD’S LARGEST">">".S., WITH WORLD’S LARGEST PRISON POPULATION, EXPANDING PRISON SLAVE LABOR
In previous CHALLENGES, we have erroneously estimated that there are about 500,000 inmates working in prison labor in the U.S.
Latest figures show that there are nearly two million prisoners in the U.S., 800,000 more than ten years ago. The U.S., with less than 5% of the world population, has 25% of the world’s prisoners. This, according to the London Financial Times, is a huge and relatively "untapped vein of young, able-bodied workers who can do more than hammer out license plates or trawl highways for rubbish."
There are now about 3,300 inmates in state prison systems who work for private firms, like Dell Computers, Boeing, Starbucks, Microsoft, Victoria’s Secret, Josten’s Caps and Gowns, and many others. Most work for smaller companies who do sporadic subcontract work for the larger companies mentioned. This is a rapidly expanding sector of the economy. The Prison Industry Enhancement program, as it is called, aims to have 10,000 prisoners working for private firms by 2005.
There are also 25,000 prisoners in federal prisons working for UNICOR, the federal prison labor agency, producing over 150 products, including 100% of all Army helmets, ammunition cases, body armor, ID tags, tarps, shirts and pants; 18% of the country’s electrical hardware; 61% of household utility contairners; 36% of household furnishings; 30% of headset/microphone speakers, all of which used to be made by workers in private industry. In 1994, 76,000 prisoners in state prisons produced $900 million worth of goods.
Private prisons are also increasing, run by such companies as Wackenhut and Corrections Corporation of America. Because they are strictly in business to make money, they are in the forefront in using convict labor. The circuit boards for Dell computers are made in one such private prison in Lockhardt, Texas. Another $22 million prison is about to be built in Texas, devoted entirely to employing inmates in private enterprise.
While the union bosses squeal about prison labor in China, prison labor in the U.S. is growing by leaps and bounds. As the U.S. moves to consolidate fascism in preparation for war, the U.S. bosses will increasingly ape their Nazi mentors in the use of prison labor. "Made in the U.S.A." will mean made by our brother and sisters caught in a racist "injustice" system.
LA Comrade
LETTER: STANDARDIZED TESTS TRACK YOUTH INTO UNEMPLOYMENT LINES
I am sending a letter written by a 13-year-old student of mine at a residential school in Dorchester, Massachusetts. She and several other students were inspired by our political discussions in class, especially around the recent fight against the Klan in New York (I showed the news footage of that in class). Her letter concerns the MCAS tests, statewide standardized assessments being given to 4th, 8th and 10th graders. These tests have received widespread criticism. Some Party members are getting involved with one of the groups trying to organize a boycott of the tests. Soon the MCAS will be a requirement for graduation from high school, even though a large percentage of students have been failing. I believe there are currently 40 states using similar tests. Her letter follows:
We, as students of the Northeastern Family Institute school in Dorchester, strongly oppose the MCAS tests. Why do students who work hard all year have to stay back just because of a test? All kids have strengths and weaknesses, and these tests don’t show a child’s full potential. The same courses in different schools are taught at different levels, so how can you give all students the same test? This is a test that does not help, it just wants you to fail, and makes kids stay back in school.
The MCAS are not fair to people who can’t speak English or who just got to America [all bilingual, as well as special education students, must take this test]. These tests are also racist, because black and Latin working class students go to schools where they do not get the best education, and the schools don’t have enough money to buy supplies. The MCAS tests will only add to a hostile atmosphere and will punish these groups for their shortcomings.
Why would the government want students to fail? The government wants this test because there are not enough jobs in the working world today. It is a way of keeping kids from getting jobs. My point is that these politicians are just pathetic, ignorant assholes. We students will refuse to take and will protest against these tests.
Boston PLP’er
LIBERAL ON THE OUTSIDE, FASCIST ON THE INSIDE
CHALLENGE
has long and often held that the deadliest forms of fascism come from liberal leaders who pose as friends of the working class but actually serve the biggest capitalists. The sordid career of Elliot Richardson, who died on New Year’s Eve, bears this out. The establishment media have made Richardson a hero because, as Attorney General, he helped bring down Nixon in the Watergate scandal.
Nixon’s real crimes lay in his inflationary economic policies that were enriching upstart capitalists at the expense of the big bankers. Earlier, however, Richardson as Nixon’s Defense Secretary played a major role in the slaughter of three million Vietnamese workers and 55,000 mainly working-class GI’s. Richardson felt no need then to oppose Nixon, because the Vietnam War was a creation of the ruling elite’s main wing. When Richardson left the government, the Rockefeller family rewarded him with a cushy job at its main law firm, Milbank Tweed.
In the late 1950’s, Richardson killed two birds with one stone on behalf of the Eastern Establishment in which he was a full-fledged member. He prosecuted Bernard Goldfine, a textile boss charged with buying influence in the Eisenhower White House. Richardson was limiting the clout of smaller bosses and insuring the reign of anti-Semitism. Richardson showed his true colors early. In 1939, he led scores of his Harvard classmates in a brown shirt parade, complete with fascist songs and salutes, goose-stepping through Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was supposed to be a college prank, but Hitler and Mussolini’s savagery was anything but a laughing matter.
We must continue to expose and attack Nazis who masquerade as liberals.
A Regular Reader
HOSPITAL WORKERS LOSE AS BOSSES’PRIVATIZE FOR PROFIT
The Administration of Daniel Freeman Catholic Hospital in Marina del Rey, Los Angeles, announced to the housekeeping staff that as of January 1, 2000 a private company will take over their department. The workers’ jobs will end in February. They can apply to work for the new company. Those selected will continue working at the hospital.
Hospital management says the workers will keep their present salaries and seniority. They say the new company has benefits but they are not sure how this will work.
The workers suspect they will lose benefits, and think the hospital may be lying about salaries and seniority. After all, the hospital is making this change to save money, and the new company is coming in to make a profit, so where will the profit come from? There is only one place…from the workers.
Maybe the company will lay off some workers and speed up others. Or lay off workers with seniority and bring in other workers at a lower rate of pay. One way or another, they have to push the workers down if the hospital is to save money and the company is to make a profit.
The housekeeping and all workers should get together now and organize a counterattack, before it’s too late. Even more important, they should join PLP to get rid of the system which says that their must work for lousy wages in lousy conditions either for the hospital or for the private company.
LA Hospital Worker
A FIRST-HAND ACCOUNT OF LIFE IN INDIA AND CHINA
"Welcome to the Taj Mahal, the Crown Palace of Agra. In 1631 the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan had the Taj constructed by a force of 20,000 workers, working around the clock for 22 years!" This was the greeting my wife and I recieved upon arriving at the Taj Mahal in India recently.
"Welcome to Varanassi,(Benares); 140,000 Hindu pilgrims come to bathe in the Ganges, the holiest of rivers, every day!" Thousands in dire poverty and the most filthy conditions in the name of religion! This is a small example of life under capitalism in India today!
In 1990, I observed a glimpse of what life under communist equality could be. Some of the accomplishments after the communist revolution in China were truly inspiring!
We visited a commune (a collective farm) near Shanghai, where 60,000 people worked together to provide for all their needs. You got the feeling people really cared and were in this together!
We in PLP are aware that serious mistakes in China, compromises on leadership, wages, nationalism and socialism were made which led back to capitalism.
But we cannot take away from the tremendous accomplishments of people like "the Barefoot Doctors," who transformed the health of China in a few short years!
Ours is but to learn from the lessons of the past which wll lead to a better future for all of humanity, based on communist equality!
Keep up the good work in CHALLENGE.
Bay Area Comrade
BASIC CONTRADICTIONS IN MASS ORGANIZATIONS
I was very excited about the anti-WTO protests in Seattle last November because they show that many workers and students are protesting exploitation and oppression, and therefore are very open to PLP’s view of ending ALL exploitation and oppression by smashing capitalism with communist revolution.
The masses are on the move! They could move either towards fascism or towards communism. Which direction depends a lot on what we in PLP do next.
PLP did a great job during the WTO meeting but it was still not nearly good enough. Most of us in PLP did not take the growing anti-WTO movement seriously. Not enough people were won to going to Seattle. Not enough are in mass organizations raising revolutionary communist ideas and leading the class struggle. If we were, many more of us would have naturally gone to Seattle to raise our revolutionary communist perspective inside the unions, environmental groups, student groups and other non-governmental organizations.
This growing anti-globalization movement is complicated and full of contradictions. Students want to stop prison labor or sweatshop labor throughout the world but groups such as Global Exchange who are backed and funded by major capitalists like Levi Strauss direct this anger against exploitation into attacking U.S. imperialist rivals like China. Clinton, Sweeney and the liberal fascist bosses wanted controlled, peaceful, non-disruptive demonstrations to put pressure on U.S. rivals.
But, many workers and students are really pissed off about what is happening to them and their fellow workers. They are angered by the extreme exploitation and oppression they see in the world, even as they are influenced by the pro-U.S. nationalism being pushed by the bosses. However, while Becker (steel union leader) pushed anti-foreign, pro-U.S. rhetoric (calling for the dumping of Russian and Japanese steel while chanting, "USA, USA", I did not hear of any steel workers or others in Seattle attacking Asians or Russians as the enemy. More mass fascism could come but it’s not here yet. Only if more PLP members vigorously raise our anti-nationalist, anti-racist, anti-imperialist, pro-communist line in mass organizations will that day never come. Developing fascism is an inevitable feature of capitalism in crisis but the mass support of workers and students for fascism is not.
I think some in PLP become frustrated by the complicated, faced in capitalist mass organization. Some view this activity with little enthusiasm because it is full of contradictions including confronting nationalist and fascist ideas. We easily say yes we should be involved in these mass groups but basically we should expect little from them because we already have a mass fascist movement with few open to communist ideas (i.e., it is too late, workers are all basically goose-stepping behind the bosses). Thus, we take a limited view of mass work. We see it as some kind of forced effort with little political reward. But, we should not just work in this growing movement, we should be fighting to win the hearts and minds of the workers and students in this movement (the bosses sure are). We believe workers and youth will see that communism is the only solution to capitalism and all its horrors. Imagine if workers and youth shut down the WTO with PLP in the lead or at least with large sections of that movement being led by or influenced by PLP members. We are not going to suddenly have revolution with everyone joining PLP all at once. We are going to have many, many messy, contradictory situations were workers are going to be won to both nationalist, fascist ideas and communist ideas. Some workers will attack us and many others will join us along the way.
The Seattle mayor and cops did not attack the anti-WTO protesters from a position of strength but from a position of weakness. The bosses are terrified by masses of workers who are not in their control. Many workers and youth got a lesson of what state power and growing fascism mean (something many black and Latin workers experience all the time). What happened last week embarrassed US imperialism and further revealed its weakness. We all need to make the fight for international working class unity and the need for communism central to the anti-WTO/anti-globalization movement.
Boston Comrade
TEMP AGENCIES AND SHELTERS ENSLAVE CHICAGO HOMELESS
At a recent meeting of the American Public Health Association, a group of homeless people in Chicago Public housing is being destroyed an entire block at a time so the number of homeless is soaring. The weather is so cold they are forced into shelters. Each morning the shelter flushes occupants out into the street, where they file into temp agencies like Manpower, located next door to the shelter. From there, they are loaded onto trucks and sent all over Chicago to become day laborers. They are then trucked back to the temp agencies, which take a big cut of their pay. The shelters then take another cut. The homeless are left with a little bit of money, but never enough to escape their situation. Once you fall into this trap, it’s almost impossible to get out.
What struck me is that this is a form of slave labor that doesn’t depend on ownership of people, like chattel slavery of the old South; nor does it depend on the welfare system, like Workfare slavery; nor does it depend on the penal system, like prison industry slavery. This slavery is based solely on the wage system that we all work under, homeless or not. Slavery was supposed to be ended by the Civil War, but it will only truly be ended with the war to uproot capitalism.
West Coast Comrade
THE 20TH CENTURY
HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW THAT LAST 1OO YEARS?
The 20th century is now history. How well do you know it? (Answers follow.)
Globalization is now in vogue, particularly after the collapse of the World Trade Organization (WTO) end-of-millennium bash in Seattle. Who defined it as imperialism and analyzed it some 90 years ago? (This revolutionary argued against political theoreticians of his time who predicted the imperialists would settle their differences because they had "too much to lose" if they fought each other.
Which was the most important event of the century for the international working class? (The person in the answer to question #1 led it.)
Who wrote one of the most important books about the event mentioned in question #2? What is the name of the book? (Warren Beatty didn’t do him justice in the movie "Reds.") He also wrote about the nationalist revolution in Mexico in 1912 and later became a leader of the U.S. Communist movement.
What was the key battle of World War II which led to the eventual defeat of the most powerful and murderous war machine of its time: the Nazi Wehrmacht? (The battle took place in the winter of 1942-43. The city where it occurred was named after the Communist leader of the USSR.)
Which flag flew over the Nazi Reichstag (parliament) in May 1945, marking the end of the Nazi "Thousand Year Reich"? This was followed by the "Battle of Manchuria" (August 1945) when the Soviet and Chinese Red Armies wiped out the bulk of the fascist Imperial Army of Japan.
Michael Jordan, Pelé, Babe Ruth, Muhammed Ali, Roberto Clemente—these are the choices of some sportswriters as "athletes of the century." Our choice is the person who became the first black football All-American at Rutgers early in 1918 when racism was even more rampant in sports. Who was this modern Renaissance man—a great singer and actor whose pro-communist, internationalist position for the working class in the face of the U.S. government’s attack inspired millions worldwide who hated racism and fascism?
Which war in the 1960’s and early ’70s revealed U.S. imperialism as a paper tiger? Millions protested this war. The U.S. armed forces have not yet recovered from it and have suffered from a syndrome named after the country in which it took place.
What organization terrorized thousands in the U.S. with its anti-communist witch-hunt? Which communist group defied, exposed and attacked it in 1964, leading to its demise? (Later that year, several members of this group were jailed because the ruling class blamed them for the first massive anti-racist, anti-cop rebellion of the ’60s, the 1964 Harlem Rebellion.)
In 1973 which organization led the sit-down strike at Chrysler’s Mack Ave. plant in Detroit, the first such strike in a U.S. auto plant since the 1937 Flint sit-down? (It was smashed by a thousand goons led by the union hacks of the United Auto Workers.
Since the early 1970’s, which anti-racist organization has consistently opposed, attacked and smashed the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis? (The latest occurred on October 23 in New York City where some members and friends of this organization were able to evade the Klan’s police protection and punch the KKK grand lizard and rip their fascist banner.)
Answers:
1. V.I. Lenin, the leader of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution that freed one-sixth of the world from capitalism. The book, "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism," is a must-read for those who want to understand the current world situation after the debacle in Seattle.
2. The Bolshevik Revolution that established the USSR.
3. John Reed, a Seattle journalist who became a communist. He wrote "Ten Days That Shook The World." Eisenstein, the Soviet film maker, and regarded as one of the greatest of the 20th century, turned it into a classic movie, much better than Hollywood’s Reds in which Beatty played John Reed.
4. The Battle of Stalingrad where the Red Army smashed the Nazi army. It is sometimes referred to as the greatest military battle in world history. It was the turning point of the war, presaging the end of the Third Reich.
5. The Soviet hammer and sickle was raised atop the Reichstag by Red Army soldiers.
6. Paul Robeson used his many talents to fight racism and capitalism and sang across all borders for the working class worldwide.
7. The Vietnam War and Vietnam Syndrome. Even though U.S. imperialism murdered over three million Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians, it was soundly defeated.
8. House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC). Members of the Progressive Labor Movement (forerunner of the Progressive Labor Party), called to testify before it in 1964, organized mass demonstrations against it in Buffalo, N.Y. and Washington, D.C. PLM members refused to hide behind the bosses’ Fifth Amendment and proudly proclaimed themselves as communists while calling the committee by its rightful name: fascist.
9. The Progressive Labor Party. This revolutionary communist organization has led hundreds of thousands in the last three decades to attack the racist terrorists of the KKK and the Nazis.
10. Workers’ Action Movement, an organization formed by PLP, led hundreds of auto workers to take over the Chrysler plant.
This issue of CHALLENGE is tri-weekly. We will return to our weekly format in the new millenium, on the issue going to press Jan. 5, 2000
- AFL-CIO/TWU `Solidarity': Siding with Fascist Mayor Giuliani to Derail NYC Transit Workers' Strike
- "I voted for you because communists are good for workers..."
S.F. TRANSIT WORKERS CHOOSE RED LEADERSHIP;
PREPARE FOR COMING CONTRACT FIGHT - Editorial:
The Face of Fascism in Seattle or, `We're so nice, we'll kick you twice' - Editorial:
Israel-Syria U.S. Backed Deal Won't Stop Another War for Oil Profits - Aftermath of "Battle of Seattle"
Patriotism and Belief in a More `Humanitarian' Capitalism: Deadly for Workers and Youth - AFL-CIO Builds Bosses' Patriotism `Fighting' Foreign Sweatshops While Prison/Slave Labor Thrives in U.S.
- El Salvador: Workers Backed 25,000 Health Care Strikers
- MLA Convention: To Fight for Reforms Or To Fight For Revolution, That is the Question
- A System That Can't Provide Housing Should Be Destroyed
NYC: Protest Giuliani's Fascist Edicts vs. Homeless - Protesting Against the WTO Is Not Enough, Youth Must Fight All Imperialists!
- The Fight Is Not Because of Drugs, It Is for the Oil of Colombia and South America
- LETTERS
- Going Postal Under Fascist Conditions
- PLP Only Viable Alternative For `Red Youth' in El Salvador
- Ruling Class Funds Liberal Mass Orgs.
- Friendly Criticism of PLP in Seattle
- CHALLENGE Comments:
- Lessons From Chile Municipal Theater Strike
- Did Racist Cops Fake Inmate `Suicide'
- U.S. Navy's Racism In Vieques
- STEEL WORKERS EXPECT MORE FROM PLP
AFL-CIO/TWU `Solidarity': Siding with Fascist Mayor Giuliani to Derail NYC Transit Workers' Strike
NEW YORK CITY, Dec. 15--The face of fascism raised its ugly head here when NYC Mayor "Jail-the-Homeless" Giuliani, representing his Wall Street banker/bosses, used the massive power of the ruling class state to smash any possible strike by 32,000 transit workers. After having gotten a strike-breaking court injunction under the bosses' Taylor Law, Ghouliani vowed to fine each and every transit striker $25,000 on the first day of any walk-out, $50,000 the second day and $100,000 the third day! Besides that, he was moving to break the union treasury, starting with a million-dollar fine the first day of any strike. As word of a sellout leaked out near the midnight deadline, he ordered his racist cops to clean out the union headquarters area of angry workers. This fascist was even demanding the workers pay for the cops' overtime and for all state aid for the schools lost "because" of a strike!
This gave pro-boss union head Willie James the excuse to tell workers they can't strike even if there was no agreement by the deadline. This is the same James who agreed to Workfare slave laborers to displace union workers as subway cleaners in the last contract (see box). The final settlement (12% over three years) was slightly more than the Transit Authority's original proposal, and less than half of the union's initial demand.
When Giuliani appeared on TV throughout Tuesday, Dec. 14, spewing his fascist threats to break the transit workers, where was AFL-CIO president John Sweeney's "re-invigorated" labor movement? Not a peep! No offer of mass solidarity, no organization of a general strike to answer this fascist strike-breaking. Nothing about joining strike picket lines, stopping all scabs, preventing all private bus lines, vans and taxis from operating. Nothing about workers on the Long Island RR, Amtrak and the Path lines walking out in solidarity, along with all city workers, whose next contract may be patterned after the transit agreement. These labor leaders are truly "lieutenants of the capitalist class" in their abject kowtowing to the bosses.
While Giuliani tried to "blame" the loyal opposition faction, New Directions (ND) (which nearly ousted James in the last union election) for any potential wildcat work stoppage, this is the same group that has gone repeatedly to the bosses' courts to sue the union. While spouting militancy and opposition to the settlement, virtually right up to the last minute the ND leaders were saying they were backing James. They were calling for a "good contract, without a strike if possible." They even called a riot a few years ago by Rikers Island prison guards a "strike." They are working within the system as much as James' machine, trying to become the "outs" who "get in" to union office.
Without transit workers, billions of dollars of profits for all NYC bosses would go down the drain. Without mass transit in a city of 7.5 million, all the major department stores would go broke. Wall Street, the financial capital of the world, couldn't function if tens of thousands of workers could not get to their jobs. That's why the bosses passed the Taylor Law (see box).
In New York, the city and the MTA's first obligation is to pay the interest on the city and transit debt to the big bankers. Service, maintenance, workers' wages and benefits all come AFTER bankers' profits. That's the definition of capitalism.
But in a period when U.S. bosses face intense competition globally, and are preparing for wars to control oil supplies and markets, they need ever more surpluses wrenched from workers' labor to pay for their war economy. This inspires even greater attacks on workers, a la Giuliani, slave labor Workfare (see box), etc.
The new "free" transfer system (paid for out of the last 25cents-fare increase) has increased the ridership, especially on buses. This forces workers to work harder and longer hours, causing more accidents, increasing stress among drivers and riders, creating longer bus runs and cutting out others entirely--in a word, SPEED-UP.
A strike of 32,000 workers could provide great potential for mass working class unity, black, white and Latin. It could have been a blow against racism since the bosses figure they can get away with squeezing these workers (a majority of whom are black and Hispanic) based on fanning racism among the rest of the working class. It could have been a blow against the fascist slave labor Workfare attack, where again the majority of welfare recipients are black and Hispanic. It could show the power of the working class, in breaking the bosses' laws and exposing the government as a tool of the capitalist class.
But strikes have limits. What workers win in one arena, the bosses take away in other ways: higher taxes, inflation, Workfare and fewer union jobs, speed-up, eventual wage-cuts in "hard times," fines imposed by the bosses' courts, etc. The bosses still control the state, its laws, and the very leaders of the union who themselves work within, and support, capitalism. By working within that system, the pro-capitalist union leaders become defenders of the bosses' interests.
The biggest victory transit workers could win out of this struggle is understanding the nature of the system that oppresses them and causes all our problems; understanding the fact that the bosses control the government, lock, stock and barrel; and understanding that the only solution to our class's problems is to destroy capitalism with a communist revolution. This goal can only be achieved if organized and led by a revolutionary communist party--the Progressive Labor Party. So real victory in this class struggle is to join and build PLP.
Organizing for that goal must come in the context of: (1) championing the workers' cause; (2) fighting to smash the bosses' anti-worker laws; (3) uniting all workers to beat back the fascist slave labor Workfare; and (4) relating all this to the necessity to get rid of the profit system.
Workfare: The Fascist Drive to Slash Wages
In the last contract, the transit union leaders agreed to the bosses' demand to use 600 slave laborers to clean the subways under Clinton/Giuliani's fascist Workfare regime. TWU president Willie James said this would "teach" people on welfare how to hold a regular job! Welfare recipients must work off their welfare checks doing this job, at an hourly rate ONE-FIFTH of the regular union rate! Instead of insisting these workers get the full union scale, TWU leaders helped the bosses rake in tens of millions based on slave labor. The spread of Workfare sets up low-wage competitors for union-scale jobs and eventually cuts wages for ALL workers. Who's next? Conductors, maintenance workers, bus drivers?
How the Bosses Use Their State to Oppress Workers
To stop workers like transit workers from exercising any power to advance their class interests, the bosses passed the Taylor Law. This law jails strike leaders and fines strikers two days pay for every day they walk out.
Under capitalism, the government (the "state") is a tool of the tiny ruling class (the bosses), to be used to oppress the majority class (the workers) whose labor produces everything. These laws are enacted to prevent workers from fighting for their class interests. Under communism, without bosses or profits, workers will reap all the fruits of their labors. Mass transit would be free.
"I voted for you because communists are good for workers..."
S.F. TRANSIT WORKERS CHOOSE RED LEADERSHIP;
PREPARE FOR COMING CONTRACT FIGHT
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 12 -- This is "a fitting cap to 26 years of struggle on this job....a vindication of your principles and politics." That's one worker's reaction to the election of PLP member John Murray as recording secretary of Transport Workers Union Local 250a, placing him on the Executive Board.
Said a Vietnam vet, "I voted for you because communists are good for workers."
These local elections are just one battle MUNI workers face in a long war. Drivers are fed up with racist attacks, management running roughshod over the contract and no response from the union leadership. Anger at the leadership is boiling. Secrecy about union finances and back-room deals are causing an explosion.
It was within this context that PLP members ran on a loose slate along with other opposition forces. About two-thirds of the local's 2,000 members voted, an unusually large turnout. John received 782 votes to the machine incumbent's 587. John's total actually surpassed the vote received by the incumbent president, who was narrowly re-elected.
The election caused widespread debate about capitalism, communism, how to fight the corporations and how to educate the membership in political economy.
"Just by challenging the machine, we are already winning," said another opposition candidate. "There is much more to this battle than just holding office." While the rest of the slate did not win, some newer activists won shop-level positions. Younger, minority workers are becoming active, and they don't plan on begging for crumbs from politicians. "Job Action," "Sick Out," "Strike," and "Wildcat" are echoing around the city.
PLP targeted capitalism as the cause of our problems at MUNI. The antagonism between capital and labor is built into the very framework of the system. One new activist told us that she re-reads our literature many times. "This is just common sense. I don't care what they call it. You have to look beyond the label of communism to understand it."
The next battle is the contract negotiations with the City and the downtown business interests. On hearing of John's victory one driver said, "That's great. Now what do we have to do? You can't do it by yourself."
Among a smaller group of activists we were able to bring up the history of communists' role in organizing the CIO unions, and the TWU in particular. Many said they now understood why the union leadership and Big Business fear the spread of communist ideas among the workers.
We may be at a new stage in the union, with a new set of problems. We may have a greater opportunity to unite with our co-workers and lead sharper class struggle. While voting in a union election may be a partial barometer of workers' sentiments, we must be careful not to allow ourselves and our co-workers to be sucked into thinking winning elections will do the trick. The bosses still hold state power and union elections cannot challenge that. Only an armed working class led by a revolutionary communist party can overthrow the bosses and their profit system.
We can sharpen the contradiction between reform and revolution, and convince many workers of the need for a mass PLP to lead our class to power. The contradiction between workers and bosses can never be reconciled. Capitalism must go. We are fighting in our union to build a mass PLP and to abolish wage slavery with communist revolution.
Editorial:
The Face of Fascism in Seattle or, `We're so nice, we'll kick you twice'
SEATTLE -- The heads are rolling here following the battles that raged in the streets between protesters and the cops, during the WTO week. Already the police chief, Norm Stamper (a liberal), has resigned, and many are calling for the resignation of the mayor, Paul Schell (also a liberal).
Almost 600 were arrested and jailed as the combined forces of the Seattle P.D., other King Co. cops, and the National Guard went wild firing tear gas, mace and rubber bullets at protesters and anyone else who got in their way. Some of the horror stories were told and retold this week when several public meetings were held for people to vent their anger. The cops screamed that they were outnumbered and unprepared, as speaker after speaker condemned them for their extremely violent tactics. (see photos) They certainly looked prepared, in full riot gear and with plenty of ammo!!
Many people in Seattle, a city with a reputation of being friendly and nice, were shocked by the behavior of the police. However, given the political situation that was unfolding at the WTO talks, it isn't surprising that the cops acted like fascist storm troopers. The WTO meeting was a fiasco. No agreements could be made because the major players, the U.S., E.U., Japan, Russia and China, were busy forming blocs in preparation for war .In order for the U.S. rulers to successfully wage war, they need to bring the working class under their control. They do this in many ways. One tactic is supporting and promoting NGOs, whose line is, "Capitalism just needs reforming." The unions do the same. Another way to control us is through police terror. (Certainly the black community has known this for a long time!) It was this face of fascism that shocked so many in Seattle, and that included some of us in the party! We secretly thought that this only happens in LA or New York or Chicago! This realization has made us get bolder about bringing the Party's line to others.
Just last weekend, some comrades went to a vigil outside the jail where the protesters were being held. There was a few moments between speakers when the microphone was free. A comrade saw an opportunity and grabbed the microphone. She spoke to the crowd of several hundred about the need to get rid of capitalism, not reform it. She talked about the role of the cops and the courts, and the need for real communism. She ended by urging people to read CHALLENGE. Everyone applauded, and several came forward with comments and questions. The other comrades circulated and distributed 60 Challenges.
As the weeks go on, a lot of (business) people here seem to be hoping that all the noise over the WTO will die down and Seattle will return to being a nice, quiet seaport town where you can go shopping and get a good cup of coffee. But to most people, the "Battle in Seattle" has changed things forever. This gives us a great chance to build the party here in the year 2000! Happy New Year! Fight for Communism!
Editorial:
Israel-Syria U.S. Backed Deal Won't Stop Another War for Oil Profits
U.S. imperialists' latest "peace" move in the Middle East is bound to bring more war. The establishment media are touting the likelihood of a deal between Israel and Syria. Some form of bargain may develop, backed by U.S. dollars and guns, but it won't stabilize the region.
Even if the Israelis and Syrians are bribed or threatened into temporarily settling some of their differences, the main contradiction in the Middle East isn't going anywhere. The region is still the world's most important source of oil. U.S. imperialism needs to control the flow and pricing of this oil. U.S. foreign and military policy is geared to this strategy.
The U.S. maintains a large naval presence (at a yearly cost of $50 billion) in and around the Persian Gulf and an important ground force in several Gulf countries as well. The Israel-Syria "peace" talks must be viewed in light of recent U.S. oil wars against Iraq. Basically, U.S. bosses want to secure their western flank in order to free themselves for future war in the east.
The New York Times chief foreign correspondent, Thomas Friedman (who usually front for Exxon-Mobil) said as much in his December 12 column: "Many Israeli generals feel such a deal is both possible and preferable to the status quo, particularly if you add the regional implications: bringing Syria into the circle of peace would close down the Lebanon front and totally isolate Iraq and Iran. That would constitute a major strategic realignment of the Middle East."
But other imperialists don't see why they should dance to Washington's tune, as the recent flop of WTO talks in Seattle proved. All doesn't always go according to plan, even for the world's "last remaining super-power." Iraqi boss Saddam Hussein just pulled his oil off the world market, as a temporary tactical probe against the U.S. He proved that the world capitalist economy still needs cheap Iraqi oil. During the halt in Iraqi shipments, U.S. Energy Secretary Richardson (another mouthpiece for Rockefeller's Exxon) said that the oil prices had risen too high and something had to be done.
The world's main imperialists can't live without Iraqi oil. Rockefeller's Exxon & Co. can't live with pending deals between Iraqi oil. bosses and U.S. imperialism's rivals: Russia, France and China. This is hardly a script that promises peace on the near horizon. U.S. rulers have few choices in the Middle East short of another oil war. Workers shouldn't be fooled by U.S. support for the Israel-Syria love-fest. Imperialism and oil add up to war. The next one can't be too far off.
Aftermath of "Battle of Seattle"
Patriotism and Belief in a More `Humanitarian' Capitalism: Deadly for Workers and Youth
LOS ANGELES -- About 120 people filled a meeting hall to talk about the victory in Seattle. Many youth told of their experiences being tear gassed, and arrested by the brutal Seattle cops. These youth were angry at the cops and proud of their victory over the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting. But how could a few thousand people demonstrating peacefully stop a group of representatives of international capital from functioning? It was their own sharp internal contradictions that put an end to the Seattle round of the WTO.
A Philippine activist from a nationalist group presented a paper that said neither fair trade nor free trade is possible under imperialism.
When a PLP member spoke briefly to attack the nationalism of the leaders of the demonstrations, and to tell how well our communist literature and banner were received, some applauded. She attacked the nationalism of George Becker (head of the steel workers union) who said we must be prepared to defend American jobs and to defend America. But the leader of the meeting countered, Yes, protectionism was a small part of this event, but we brought workers from around the world to speak, to build internationalism. Another member of the audience said all the demands of the march pushed nationalism and protectionism. It was reactionary. So was the march to dump steel with marchers chanting `USA! USA!' The PLP member added that on November 30, Gore proposed a 178% tax on Russian cold-rolled steel and now more Russian steel workers will be out of work. She tried to ask how that solved anything for the world's workers. The leaderof the meeting cut her off and showed a video of the Seattle police beating the demonstrators.
The police riot against the demonstrators and residents of Seattle in itself shows the lie of the human rights position of the AFL-CIO and the NGO's (non-governmental organizations) which say the great standards in the U.S. should be pushed around the world! Many got CHALLENGE during and after the meeting.
The next day two friends in this group called the PLP member. One congratulated her on what she said and added that she was pleasantly surprised at the applause when she said she was a communist. The other agreed that the anti-WTO movement is justifying U.S. imperialism based on the lie of human rights. She fears they could convince good people into thinking that the U.S. is fighting for high standards of human rights around the world. But, we shouldn't be afraid. Just like us, more people can see through the hypocrisy of high standards from a U.S. ruling class responsible for more deaths and anti-communist, racist, anti-worker crusades than any other ruling class in history. The key to that fight must be that more of the people involved read CHALLENGE.
A Threatened Empire
The fiasco in Seattle has sharpened many of the contradictions among the world's bosses. The New York Times, mouthpiece of Rockefeller, Inc., explained how the WTO talks collapsed. "We would make progress, then the Europeans or the Japanese would come back and start right where we began hours before," said one U.S. participant. "You have to conclude that the outcome they wanted was the outcome we got: a collapse."
The Washington Post said that this fiasco sent a "grim message" and could "usher in a period of trade friction and cause the already burgeoning U.S. trade deficit to climb even higher." The WP quote Lawrence Chimerine, of the Economic Strategy Institute, which expressed concerns that without a mechanism to open up markets for U.S. goods and services, particularly in Asia, there is no prospect of controlling the US trade deficit, now approaching $300 billion. This widening trade gap is an "economic and political time bomb just waiting to explode at the first sign of economic downturn in the U.S."
This sharpening dogfight among world's bosses is taking many other forms. At almost the same time, the Seattle fiasco took place, the U.S. rivals in Asia and Europe were busy shoring up their own defensive positions. "The Asian countries [including China] held an ASEAN meeting over the weekend [preceding the WTO conference] that was much more important to them than anything going on in Seattle." (Stratfor, Inc. 11/29/99) On November 24, Mexico and the European Union (EU) put the finishing touches on "the most comprehensive free-trade agreement ever negotiated," according to EU trade commissioner Pascal Lamy. Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo praised this direct attack on NAFTA saying the accord will put the nation "in a strong international trade position."
To add muscle to their position, the Europeans began building their own independent military machine. A few weeks before Seattle, the EU announced the merger of the military arms of Germany's DASA, France's Aerospatiale and Spain's CASA. The week after, the EU announced the formation of an "autonomous" rapid reaction force, separate from NATO. "U.S. fears rose," reported the Times of London. (12/8/99)
Trade wars among the world's bosses will eventually lead to shooting wars. Workers must understand this, and be prepared not to become cannon fodder in their respective bosses' war plans. There is an alternative, build a mass communist PLP to turn the imperialist dogfight into a revolutionary struggle to wipe them out from the face of the earth.
A TALE OF TWO MEETINGS
"Industry and economy in the hands of international finance capital means the end of all possibility of social liberation...we ardent socialists are waging the fight against capitalism and imperialism incarnated in the Versailles Treaty." So wrote the National Socialist propagandist of the Nazi Party, Gregor Strasser, in the 1930s. Substitute the word `WTO' for `Versailles Treaty' and it could well have been a speech we heard at the teach-ins in Seattle. And Strasser, it's important to note was not being cynical. He meant it and when he and his Brown Shirts began to organize for the `second revolution' the Big German bosses ordered Hitler to carry on the massacre known as the Night of the Long Knives. Hitler quickly obeyed his capitalist masters and betrayed his fellow national-socialists.
SAN FRANCISCO -- It is worth recalling this history. Within a week of the Battle in Seattle, 120 people (up from the usual 10 or so) attended a meeting of Global Exchange, to evaluate the "victory," and gather forces for the up-coming battles. And plenty is planned.
In February there will be an Open World Trade Union Conference in San Francisco. In April, mass protests are planned when the World Bank and International Monetary Fund meet in Washington, DC, followed by mass May Day marches. A campaign will be launched against the use of prison labor in China, the China's entry to the WTO. Medea Benjamin, the new darling of Business Week, introduced these and other plans.
But it was the next speaker, Vincent Menotti from the rich man's club, the International Forum on Globalization, who really caught our attention. For him the battle in Seattle spelt "patriotism." Unfortunately only one person hissed in opposition, although one or two attacked that position in speeches later on. Hardly were the fruits of this so-called victory picked when they were being packaged in patriotism!
A PL speaker pointed out that the Nazi Party in Germany and fascist forces in Mussolini's Italy developed with a mix of nationalism, populism, and racism. He called for building a mass communist Party. Afterwards several participants came up to buy Challenge and express their agreement.
A PLP meeting held early the following week generated a heightened urgency about building communism, advancing the sale of Challenge, and combating the spread of nationalism. Speaker after speaker joined in a lively discussion on the role of Challenge, and the necessity and opportunities for fighting for communism within mass organizations led by reactionary forces. Six of the newer forces agreed to start distributing Challenge, and one young worker joined the Party. There were 36 people at the meeting. It's from the determination of groupings like this that the rulers attempts to build fascism will meet their doom.
AFL-CIO Builds Bosses' Patriotism `Fighting' Foreign Sweatshops While Prison/Slave Labor Thrives in U.S.
NEW YORK CITY, Dec. 9-- Glitzy Fifth Avenue was crowded today, not with the usual Xmas shoppers, but with hundreds of demonstrators against sweatshops. Workers and many youth from local high schools and colleges protested Niketown, Disney, Gap, etc. for using sweatshops to produce their merchandise. But while most of the demonstrators were honest and wanted to fight sweatshops and child labor, what was the role of the National Labor Committee, the group formed by the AFL-CIO to organize against sweatshops?
These union leaders put a lot into this campaign. John Sweeney, top honcho of the AFL-CIO, came to the demo (the first time he attended one of the anti-sweatshop protests). Their idea of fighting sweatshops, child labor and prison labor is mainly to attack bosses in other countries, particularly China. They are trying to build patriotism (Buy American products and support Our Democracy said one group's leaflet) and anti-communism, mainly blaming China (without saying it is now a capitalist country). But the fact is that U.S. bosses now have 500,000 prisoners working for dirt-poor wages (many producing for private companies like Dell and Boeing). If the AFL-CIO wanted to fight prison labor and sweatshops, what about the sweatshops in Chinatown, many of whose workers pay dues to UNITE (the garment union behind the National Labor Committee).
PLP participated in this protest with our banner calling for workers' power. We distributed 200 CHALLENGES and hundreds of leaflets analyzing how the sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry was mainly behind the WTO fiasco in Seattle. But we must do more to organize inside the anti-sweatshop movement to win the honest workers and youth interested in fighting sweatshops and prison labor to fighting them right here in the U.S., as well as all over the world. After all, capitalism is based on wage slavery, while communism fights for its abolition.
El Salvador: Workers Backed 25,000 Health Care Strikers
San Salvador, Dec. 8, 1999--More than 25,000 workers marched through the main streets of the Salvadoran capital to demand better jobs, services and living conditions. Patients and pensioners who use the health care system (called Social Security system) came into the streets to show their support of the workers. They participated in the march with signs saying "the struggle of the workers of Social Security is just and correct", "health care is a right for the workers, not a privilege."
The strike of the workers of the Salvadoran Social Security System has now lasted more than a month and the workers continue struggling. The march was a demonstration of the unity of the working class, including teachers, workers, and students who joined the demonstration.
A wave of strikes has been organized in El Salvador. The government thought that with wage cuts and firings, they would hold back the workers' movement. How wrong the capitalists were. More than 11,000 workers of the Social Security have been on strike since Nov. 7 and we aren't planning to give in to the government's repression. The bosses have just fired 226 workers. A group of unions called MOLI is announcing a strike in the different government ministries. The labor climate is like that of the decade of the 1970's, which led to a civil war in this country.
Sharp struggle has been carried out among the workers in the Social Security system, showing them that with or without privatization, its wage slavery that keeps us in a situation of hunger and poverty. It's a lie to think that by rejecting being class conscious fighters, we can keep our jobs. In a meeting that the union called, a worker said, "if in January, they privatize the Social Security system, more than 30% of the workers will be fired, whether or not they have participated in the struggle. So, why not join the struggle?" At least that way the workers are taking the offensive.
"Several workers have commented to me that the only way this struggle will be resolved is through armed struggle, and I've been thinking that the only way out of this crisis in which we are submerged by capitalism is the road of communist revolution proposed by PLP. I've passed Challenge to several workers, and they think the same way," said a friend of the party and a Challenge reader. This is a clear sign that PLP is on the correct road. We must continue to involve ourselves in the mass movements and build consciousness among the working class that the fight against capitalism is a life and death struggle. It's us, the workers, or them, the capitalists. There's no middle ground in this war.
In the daily struggles of the workers in El Salvador and throughout the whole world, we shouldn't lose sight of the source of these problems: capitalism, and its crisis of overproduction and the imperialist wars it causes. The only solution to these problems is to destroy the bosses and their profit system. No reform struggle, even if we win, will improve our lives. As long as capitalism exists, the bosses' thirst for profits will dominate. That means hunger, poverty and death for the workers. Only a communist society will improve our lives. Join the Progressive Labor Party to strengthen us and to make it our tool to fight for power and, in that way, to bequeath our children a better life.
MLA Convention: To Fight for Reforms Or To Fight For Revolution, That is the Question
CHICAGO -- December 26 through 30 there'll be a lot of struggle at the Modern Language Association's (MLA) annual convention in Chicago.
The MLA is the professional organization of college and university-level teachers of language and literature; it has a substantial and well-respected radical caucus--in which many of our friends are active--that over the years has led significant fights against racism, sexism, and other manifestations of the movement toward fascism reflected in higher education.As we engage in these struggles, it is crucial to put forward a class analysis of the world situation in which they occur. This context is contradictory. Because of increasing international competition, the U.S. capitalist class has the need for a certain number of college graduates trained to be critical, literate, and skilled workers, politically faithful to the ruling class and capable of performing the sophisticated labor capital needs to amass its profits. Hence the current drive toward higher "standards," k-12 and beyond. At the same time, the capitalists have access to an international pool of such workers; only a limited number need come from the United States. Thus the talk about "standards" is mainly a matter of weeding out. Most of the working-class students who aspire to go to college and rise upward in the system are targeted for relatively low-skilled and poorly compensated work; their situation has more in common with that of prison and Workfare laborers than it has with the corporate lawyers and magnates they are urged to take as their role models.
Thus the recent drive toward eliminating so-called "remedial" courses at CUNY (City University of New York) represents the wave of the future, at least for public higher education. Those working-class students not already weeded out by high school proficiency tests requiring skills far beyond those they have been taught encounter the next hurdle in college. A significant number are either flunked out or confined to junior college programs funneling them into low-wage employment. Even those receiving their B.A or B.S. Degrees rarely achieve their "dreams". And the racism shaping this whole process is of course notorious. The recent, racist statement of the president of Queens College, CUNY, regarding the presumably low quality of its student body--`sh__t in, sh__t out'--exemplifies this trend.In the context of these cutbacks, the humanities departments are the first to go. Most English departments now serve the function of providing the most basic literary skills for workers entering the lower echelons of the labor force. A crisis in academic labor--especially in the humanities--has resulted from this situation. More and more courses are taught by non-tenure track workers, either graduate student, teaching assistants or part-time adjuncts.
The Radical Caucus where we are intensely involved has addressed these issues. This Caucus has initiated these reform struggles: unionization of all campus labor, defend the committee on campus bigotry, expose the use of sweatshops or prison labor, etc. We realize that all of these reform struggles won't destroy the true culprit of racism, sexism, and wage slavery: capitalism!The greatest achievement of PLP members and friends at the MLA convention and through continuing mass work and basebuilding will be to win more members to join PLP and fight for communism.
A System That Can't Provide Housing Should Be Destroyed
NYC: Protest Giuliani's Fascist Edicts vs. Homeless
NEW YORK CITY, Dec. 14 -- New York City-PLP members helped to mobilize people from several churches and from AFSCME Local 371 to participate in a rally on December 5 sponsored by the Coalition For the Homeless. Rally speakers, mostly ministers, union leaders and Coalition for the Homeless leaders, raised their voices to a fever pitch to unite against "greater evil" Giuliani and to carefully demand the "right to shelter" under the law and to sing "We shall overcome some day." PLP'ers interjected with calls for revolution, NOW. One carried a sign saying, "A system that can't provide housing should be destroyed." He urged fellow union members to refuse to carry out the Nazi orders to sign up workers in shelters to Workfare and to refuse to sanction mothers who don't with removal of their children.
Other comrades and friends helped to distribute 1,200 leaflets calling for another protest on December 9. The leaflet's headline was "Giuliani to Homeless: Work Will Set You Free (Nazi slogan over concentration camp gate)." People at the rally asked for bunches to distribute, to take back to their shelters or give to their friends in organizations they belong to.
Some PLP'ers openly agitated by distributing PLP leaflets and CHALLENGES.
Slowly PLP members are building visible anti-fascist trends within organizations to which we belong countering the dangerous illusion that liberal politicians can and will rescue workers.
Thirty people from one church and soup kitchen took a bus to the rally. Several gave out a special edition of the church newsletter in which anti-fascism was the theme:
"New York has become lot like Dachau! Unions have allowed slave-labor, WEP workers to be super-exploited in place of unionized employees. A militarized police force has been given marching orders to clear the streets of all `undesirables' and `mental defectives.' And if the latter object to being `cleared' and forced into slave-labor run shelters they are imprisoned as an example to the rest of us. Mayor Giuliani is serving as Camp Commandant, `AND DON'T YOU FORGET IT! he subtly reminds us every other day...'
"The Mayor, riding on a nearly unprecedented wave of racist media stereotyping, has driven the next stake in the work-camp fence he and his Wall Street mentors have designed for most of us: to imprison us when the next economic `downturn' inevitably hits, and any of us dares to rebel. But Giuliani's emerging fascist politics are a totally predictable outgrowth of the `Welfare Reform Act' passed in Washington by a Republican Congress, but proposed and signed by a Democratic President. There is blood to go around for all politicians' hands."
On December 9 almost 40 workers and students protested at the Department for Homeless Services. Prior to the protest two people from the planning group delivered a "Nazi-of-the-Year Award" to Mayor Giuliani and Homeless Services Commissioner Martin Oesterreich. High school students and their teachers led the picket line, loudly chanting, "Housing, yes; Crack down, no! Fascist policies got to go!" and, "Hitler rose, Hitler fell, Giuliani go to hell." Then the protesters marched to City Hall Park where we broke the ban on demonstrations there. A homeless friend from the soup kitchen which helped plan the protest had promised to speak about his arrest two days before. But he was arrested again for sleeping under the same bridge and so was unable to get to the demonstration.
With Giuliani's "take-no-prisoners" approach to breaking a potential transit strike, it's more important than ever for PLP'ers to reach out to the working class to take bold action against developing fascism. As the church newsletter said, "Those of us who keep the city running, everyone who works here in other words, can slow the city down. Or stop it. And now is the time to do just that! In every workplace we need to be discussing concrete actions to be taken on behalf of our sisters and brothers who are being forced into the streets, then into slave labor shelters, or into jails."
Through all of this activity PLP'ers are carrying out the sharp struggle to convince our friends to join and become active members of PLP. Some have become hand to hand distributors of CHALLENGE. So we will build the mass revolutionary communist party that the working class needs to destroy fascism.
Protesting Against the WTO Is Not Enough, Youth Must Fight All Imperialists!
MEXICO CITY, Dec. 13 -- Striking students from UNAM (the National Autonomous University of Mexico) demonstrated in front of the US embassy in support of the demonstrations in Seattle against the World Trade Organization. Police provocateurs infiltrated the march, breaking glass at the diplomatic center. With this pretext the fascist Mexico City police viscously attacked the demonstrators. They beat dozens and jailed 98. The PRD government showed the imperialists that they don't vacillate in keeping capitalist law and order. The UNAM strikers, like many other people, were fooled by the bosses' propaganda, thinking that the recent failed meeting of the WTO was a victory for progressive forces who oppose free trade. What was mainly seen in Seattle was capitalist nationalism of the different economic blocks who compete inside the WTO, sharpening the inter-imperialist battle for markets in the face of the deepening crisis of overproduction.
Clinton and the thugs of the AFL-CIO used the discontent of the masses to defend their industries and try to slow the decline of their exports. The Europeans protected their agricultural industry, and the emerging capitalists of Mexico, Brazil, India. Indonesia, and Malaysia defended slave labor as the only source of wealth to keep them competitive.
Slave labor has allowed the Mexican capitalists to sign NAFTA and the new Trade Agreement with the European Union. Mercosur, the third largest market in the world, is accelerating the process of regional integration in all of Latin America, and with the Europeans. All the capitalist trade agreements have brought misery and death to hundreds of millions of workers. No worker in the world should support his own executioner! All the capitalists and imperialists are the sworn enemies of the workers. The working class needs an international Communist party to confront all of them.
The fight among the imperialists for markets is sharpening in the whole world, showing that worse calamities for the workers are ahead. Only the rebuilding of the international Communist movement can put the working class on the offensive to turn these fights and wars between the imperialists into class struggle for communism. This is the alternative of PLP. Join us!
The Fight Is Not Because of Drugs, It Is for the Oil of Colombia and South America
Guerillas from FARC, the largest guerrilla group here, overran a Colombian naval base near the Panamanian border on Dec. 12. The raid highlights a new lack of Colombian military intelligence since the US plane was shot down. "This incident will likely result in more US intelligence aid to Colombia and force a reevaluation of US involvement in both countries." (Stratfor, 12/14/99). This incident shows that the battle for Colombia is heating up and leading to increased U.S. military involvement. FARC is supported by European imperialists.
What's really behind the U.S. military build up in Colombia? Is it to stop drugs or to stop "terrorists"? No, it's mainly a fight between the US and European imperialists for control of resources, markets and labor of Latin America. The fight for the oil and gas of South America is key in that inter-imperialist dogfight. The Europeans are making great advances in what was previously the private domain of US imperialism.
France's Total oil company (now Totalfina after merging this summer with Belgium's Petrofina) is growing by leaps and bounds in Latin America since it first ventured into Colombia in 1973. It is presently the top foreign oil producer in Colombia and is Argentina's second-largest gas producer. It is also actively preparing two major undertakings that, by 2001, aim to make it one of the biggest foreign oil producers in Venezuela and perhaps the number one gas producer in Bolivia.
Totalfina is also planning to broaden its Latin American presence with potential projects in Brazil and Peru, while keeping an eye on the possible privatization of Mexico's oil industry.
Totalfina is positioning itself to become the main gas supplier of Brazil and neighboring countries. Totalfina is also building pipelines to transport its Argentine production to Santiago de Chile and Porto Alegre in southern Brazil. It has several projects for gas sales for electrical power plants and transformation of gas into methanol or fertilizers. ("Totalfina Invests in Colombia," in the Petroleum Economist, Sept. 30, 1999, p. 18.)
The French bosses' goal is to become the biggest supplier of gas and energy in South America. Their plans for producing oil can't be less ambitious. They are making serious inroads in this respect. Other European bosses are doing likewise. Spain's Repsol recently bought most of the oil industry of Argentina.
In addition, a Brazilian aerospace company has made an alliance with the French company that produces the Mirage fighter. This will open up the South American market to European aerospace interests. And Spain, in addition to huge investments in Latin America's banking industry, has invested over $10 billion and now owns one out of every three telephone lines in the region. Renault of France, taking advantage of the newly signed free trade treaty between Mexico and the EU, will start building a subcompact in Mexico. VW is considering expanding its plant in Peubla. "The greater European presence in Mexico will intensify competition in the US market for Detroit and Japanese makers." (LA Times 11/30/99)
South America is an important market, rich in natural resources. Brazil alone has the eighth largest economy in the world. Being able to turn off most of the energy supply to the industries of the major countries in the region is a very powerful position. This obviously would relegate US imperialism to second fiddle in Latin America. US bosses won't roll over and play dead. That's why eventually they must invade Colombia and any country that seriously threatens to switch imperialist camps. Capitalism means competition, and competition means war. The best way to prepare for this is by building the PLP today to fight to bury the imperialists with communist revolution.
LETTERS
Going Postal Under Fascist Conditions
I'm a middle-aged black worker who took a temporary job to earn extra money. A friend gave me an application for the Post Office in Palatine, Illinois. I've been there a little over a week. This is the last time I'll work for the P.O.
My first night on the job a supervisor yelled at me to do something. Now, I take pride in being a hard-working, and conscientious worker who gives respect where respect is due. I would not have spoken to a dog the way she yelled and screamed at me.
"Hey don't come that way because I'm not in that kind of a bag. If you want me to do something just tell me to do it politely, and I will know how to respond to it." However, I'm not the only worker some of these supervisors talk to like that. The P.O. has several classifications of workers; myself and others are one of the lowest ones, 21-day casuals. They hired 44 casuals since I was hired; 24 have quit.
I go home and I'm completely sick, not physically but sick because of all the stuff that goes on. The supervisors don't know how to talk to you. They scream and holler to get out their frustrations, like we don't have frustrations.The other night a regular (full-time) employee brought some pallets over to the room we were working in. I told him not to bring any more pallets because the room was too full. He said O.K., he didn't have a problem with that. Five minutes later the supervisor came hollering at me, saying that, as a casual, I had no right telling a "regular" what to do. We're all in this workforce together, working for these nickels, dimes and crumbs. These supervisors just do not understand this.
My facility is 80% black, with Asians and whites. All the supervisors are black. I understand why postal workers are stressed and go off and do the things they do. These untrained supervisors get a taste of power. But they don't know that management uses them too. This supervisor on the second shift has been busted down twice. Every time management wants her to do their dirty work, they will move her off the line. But after she's done, they'll move her back on the line.
Casuals need some voice in the P.O. because there is no one voice for us.
Frustrated Casual in Palatine
PLP Only Viable Alternative For `Red Youth' in El Salvador
First, we want to congratulate you for the great work that you are developing building a communist organization. We are a group of young people who have been reading CHALLENGE and we feel very happy with the things you do. We think they are very real and we like them. The Salvadoran newspapers are completely capitalist, biased and in general they tell lies. That's because they're made to spread the ideas of the bourgeoisie and keep the people misinformed, so they can continue to exploit the working class, from whose labor they live.
On the other hand we want to refer to the misnamed "left" in El Salvador, the FMLN. We only see them as another part of the bourgeoisie who want to get power to continue exploiting the people. They don't have a clear vision. What are the structural changes they would make to the current neo-liberal system, or that they are currently carrying out in our country? That's why we see the communist organization of PLP as the viable alternative to change the destitute situation in which the great majority of our population lives. Let's fight for a just society!
A Group of Red Youth, El Salvador
Ruling Class Funds Liberal Mass Orgs.
The following information from a preliminary search on the college research device Nexis-Lexis shows that the leading Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO's) are tied to top ruling class institutions. These NGO's may appear "radical" but their mission is to build a mass movement backing U.S. imperialism.
The International Forum on Globalization (IFG), founded by Ralph Nader, Jerry Brown and Jeremy Rifkin in 1994, sponsored the main teach-in at the anti-WTO events. They advance the idea that "small is beautiful," that people should use local resources and push environmentalism. They opposed GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) and NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement).
The IFG is backed by the Institute for Policy Studies, a ruling class think tank founded by Jerry Mander of San Francisco's Public Media Center which supported U.S. military attacks on Iraq and Yugoslavia. They have lots of money. Their web site lists associates as: Friends of the Earth, Ralph Nader, the Sierra Club (with ties to Chevron) and Canadian Trade Unions. Their teach-in at Berkeley was supported by Kirkpatrick Sale and the Max and Anna Levinson Foundation.The other NGO active in the anti-WTO and anti-sweatshop groups is Global Exchange (GEX) which is now planning a campaign against Wal-Mart's use of Chinese labor. They hypocritically claim they're fighting for "high labor standards," but the U.S. government and corporations are among the main powers responsible for low wages worldwide!
GEX was founded in 1988 by Medea Benjamin, a self-described "ex-hippie" from San Francisco. She makes money organizing tours to Tijuana and Chiapas in Mexico, and the Strawberry Fields of northern California, as well as to Cuba and Brazil. She sponsors anti-sweatshop tours and sent observers to the elections in Mexico and Indonesia. There are GEX lawyers in the campaign to free Leonard Peltier (jailed native American).GEX and UNITE (garment union) filed a class action law suit against 18 garment companies in the US-Marinas islands, called Saipan, alleging illegal labor practices by Nike, the GAP, Wal-Mart, Target, Jamboree, etc. In mid-year some settled, supported by UNITE, Levi-Strauss and Democratic Congressman George Miller from Martinez, California. In 1992 Levi's canceled its contract there. GEX then labeled Levi's products "fair trade" products. In a deal worked out about the Saipan case, some contractors now get to stamp "made in USA" on clothing produced in Saipan.
GEX is funded by the Compton and San Francisco Foundations (a SF ruling class group) as well as by James Gaither, an officer of the James Irvine foundation. Gaither, a lawyer, is a director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, of Levi Strauss, of the Hewlett Foundation, the Rand think-tank and is a trustee of Stanford University. Others on the GEX board are also connected with Stanford. Many directors of Levi-Strauss are also on the Boards of these foundations. Levi's is more a part of the ruling class than other garment companies. Its Chairman, Peter Haas, is also a member of the San Francisco Foundation. This is hardly a grass roots organization!GEX has an agreement with Reebok, Levi's and Mattel to adhere to proper labor standards and become "fair trade" companies. GEX filed its suit against the 18 garment companies in courts in LA, San Francisco and Saipan. The suit was joined by Sweatshop Watch, UNITE, and the Asian Law Caucus. GEX's Mike Dolan, who claimed a big victory in Seattle, helped the Los Angeles mayoral campaign of Richard Riorden. Before becoming LA's mayor, Riorden was a Mattel Vice President.
In June, 1997, Benjamin explained to an LA Times interviewer that she is pro-capitalist. Her group encourages indigenous people to make products and sell them via Global Exchange. She says she sells "ethnic crafts" at "fair prices," avoiding the middle man, and pays "decent wages," She herself leads about four trips a year. She says she advises young people who want to do "human rights work" to "get an MBA," teach accounting, tell the oppressed to open their own businesses and become part of the "global exchange/fair trade craft center." GEX receives grants from foundations that are interlocked with Levi's. Obviously, GAP and others are Levi's' competition.
We hope this information helps those active in this movement to see the ties and ideology of those behind it, so they can better fight to build PLP.
Los Angeles Reader
Friendly Criticism of PLP in Seattle
I spent four days in Seattle together with a goodly number of PLP members from around the country, who had come for the events and protests around the WTO summit. I sat in on many discussions and observed your communist practice as you interacted with this mass of protesting people. I wish to share some observations.On page 3 of the December 15 CHALLENGE, you wrote, "The debate must not be WTO or anti-WTO but capitalism or no capitalism." Your mass work reflects this, and at all times when your comrades speak publicly, you emphasize what you wish to tear down. And certainly the Marxist critique of capitalism can be deep and powerful.
But you are missing an opportunity! When the focus of consciousness of democratic forces is on building alternatives to the status quo, you must be there with a content-filled presentation of your alternative. When everyone is dialoguing on an alternative future, you too must emphasize what you wish to build. Can you inspire and motivate people to your vision of a communist society? You made no such attempt in Seattle.
But what is communism anyway? Certainly it is worth revisiting Marx's and Lenin's writings on this. But they didn't say much. Can you really develop and expand a somewhat detailed vision of what a communistically organized society would look like? I mean a vision in accord with our realities in the year 1999 and beyond. Can you engage in a four-hour presentation on what communism might be, much as non-communist, anti-WTO forces could deliver four hours of lectures on their alternatives? Ideas move history. Marx recognized this when he wrote that while the economic base determines the superstructure, the superstructure turns back and influences the base in countless ways.
A final thought on the anti-WTO movement. I understand that PLP considers many protesters in Seattle as part of a reactionary movement. Nevertheless you would recognize that there are also sincere democratic forces involved. Democratic forces--who seek justice and a curbing of the violent excesses of the capitalist system, yet do not have the vantage point of system thinking--are part of the evolutionary unfolding of this system. Both Marx and Lenin recognized this.Can you deal with democratic forces as such in a comradely way? Can you move beyond speeches directed at them fueled by an ideologically-driven anger, delivered from the wings of the auditorium, to dialoguing with them from a place of balanced poise, where you really listen? If so, they will listen too.
A friend
CHALLENGE Comments:
We thank our friend for his letter. We agree with the thrust of it although perhaps he overstates his case by way of emphasizing his point. We agree there were lots of sincere forces involved and many of them approached us after we spoke, whether from the wings or the center of the auditorium, and commented how quickly the chair would interrupt OUR speeches, calling time, while letting others make their non-communist points at leisure. (Incidentally, the audience applauded those who did speak from the wings.) We also spent many hours outside the auditoriums selling CHALLENGES leafleting and engaging in one-on-one discussions with hundreds of honest people.
Nevertheless, our friend is right in challenging us to present our communist goals with greater clarity and confidence. With friends like this the Party will grow.
Lessons From Chile Municipal Theater Strike
After being on strike for 54 days, workers at the Municipal Theater in Santiago, reached a partial agreement with the bosses of the Cultural Corporation which runs the theater. The workers demanded, among other things, a 10% wage hike but only received 5%. They also demanded an end to the disparities between the salaries of the Cultural Corporation Board and those of the workers. In exchange, the five unions, (representing musicians, the municipal chorus, the Santiago Ballet, technicians and office workers) agreed to return to work. These workers developed strong unity during the almost two months of the strike, an important aspect of working class struggles.
The partial agreement doesn't solve any of these workers immediate or long-range problems. But the lessons of the experiences learned by these workers during their strike should be now used to fight for long-range solutions. Welcome to the real world; it's very different from the arts and entertainment world. It's the real world that forces workers to fight the system that has turned their lives into a living hell. We in PLP here in Chile have supported your struggle consistently and now invite you to join us in the fight for a world without bosses.
PLP Club, Santiago, Chile
Did Racist Cops Fake Inmate `Suicide'
Shirley Mickens of Johnstown, Pennsylvania is suing the city, claiming it allowed her husband to die.
Charles Mickens, a black man, was arrested last summer by Johnstown cops for drunkenness and disorderly conduct. Mr. Mickens had been institutionalized for mental illness and had attempted suicide in the past. The police department was well aware of Mr. Mickens' problems. On the night in question, the police placed Mr. Mickens in a town jail holding cell. The cell has a video camera which monitors prisoners. The cops made no attempt to monitor Mr. Mickens. They claim he was found dead at 5:00 A.M. after hanging himself "with his socks."
The police have never released the report. Even the right-wing editor of the local paper wrote an editorial about the corruption in the police department, demanding the police release the Mickens report.
Also, the police should have sought medical attention for Mr. Mickens or taken him to the hospital psychiatric ward instead of placing him in a holding cell without monitoring him. Social workers know it is mandatory to constantly monitor anyone with suicidal thought patterns during a crisis. Another question: just how did Mr. Mickens hang himself with his socks if he was drunk? Could it be that the police are withholding the report because Mr. Mickens did not hang himself. Racism is common in police departments. Throughout the history of capitalist Amerikkka many black people have been killed under suspicious circumstances while in police custody.
We need a mass movement to demand the report be released and that this incident be investigated thoroughly by a citizens' panel. Communists must point out that this type of incident is rooted in the growing fascist nature of capitalism, and that can only be stopped by workers power.
Johnstown Red
U.S. Navy's Racism In Vieques
The last issue of CHALLENGE mentions the growing racism inside the armed forces, and how this hampers the rulers' plans to win soldiers to fight in their imperialist war for oil. The November, 1999 issue of U.S. Naval Proceedings, published by the Naval Academy in Annapolis, ran an article which would make the KKK proud.
Written by a ship captain, it basically called Puerto Ricans "savages." The author compares Rosy Roads and other U.S. military facilities in Puerto Rico to the rest of the island, stating that "everything is perfect" in the military bases, but outside the bases all one finds is "dirt and antisocial attitudes from the natives that throw everything into the streets in total carelessness." It also says that the local population should thank the Navy for what it has done for Vieques; how the Navy helped the people of Vieques after hurricane George caused devastation all over Puerto Rico in 1998, etc.It's not just the Navy and its racist articles, racism and the armed forces go hand in hand. It's impossible to end racism in the bosses' armed forces, because they represent the system that breeds it.
Reader
STEEL WORKERS EXPECT MORE FROM PLP
"How come you're not in Seattle? I figured you [PLP] would be right in the middle of the fight." "He's not thinking about Seattle. He's thinking about vacation." These were some of the comments from my fellow workers during the anti-WTO demonstrations. And these are my friends.I explained that the Party was in Seattle, and was exposing the tricks of USWA (steel workers union) President Becker & company, and winning workers to a communist outlook. I said their criticisms were probably right (having been asked to go by my Party club), and that they should come to our next meeting and voice their ideas.
I underestimated my fellow workers. Workers fighting back against "globalism" (which we call imperialism) inspired them. They want to know what we think, and respect our ideas, even if there isn't total agreement. Most important, as communists we are expected to be in the struggle, fighting for our ideas. We are held to a higher standard.
The bosses are working overtime to line up workers for the next war, whether with guns or tariffs. George Becker and his crowd are waving the red, white, and blue to get steelworkers and others to side with "their bosses" against whomever. The struggle is on. If we in PLP don't win workers to internationalism, to the unity of all workers, no one else will. It's our duty!
Midwest Steel Worker
